Fig. 3: Amorphous polymer micropollutants release from a stressed polypropylene sheet. | Nature Communications

Fig. 3: Amorphous polymer micropollutants release from a stressed polypropylene sheet.

From: Stress-induced phase separation in plastics drives the release of amorphous polymer micropollutants into water

Fig. 3

a Protocol used to expose stressed PP sheets to 95 °C water for 4 h. b Optical image of the inner compressed surface of PP sheet after hot-water exposure. The blue box area has a high quantity of intact a-PP droplets, while the red box showed droplets deformed by air bubble at the hot-water-PP sheet interface. c SEM image of typical PP APMPs (red circles) captured on membrane filter surface (800 nm pore size). d Raman spectra of typical PP APMPs releases from stressed PP sheet (red line), compared to the spectra from bulk PP sheet (blue line), standard (std.) bulk amorphous PP wax (pink line), and droplets from the surface of the stressed PP sheet (dark yellow line), respectively. e The quantity of PP APMPs released from raw flat std PP sheet and stressed PP sheets with different diameters and compressive stresses, respectively. Error bars indicate standard deviation. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Back to article page